Deputy Speaker, we reject the Portfolio Committee on Co- operative Governance and Traditional Affairs' Budget Review and Recommendations report. We do so because the report is based on the same assumption that informed the Division of Revenue Bill between spheres of government, which has not worked in the last 20 years.
The reality is that the ruling party and the committee have reached a point where they cannot think or see how
municipalities can be reorganised to drive service delivery, become centres of localised industrialisation and creation of jobs.
We have put firm and clear proposals, which if we are listened to, should have formed part of the key recommendations. We need to revive the Division of Revenue Bill to ensure that municipalities get the majority of the revenue raised nationally.
The assumption that municipalities collect revenue enough to deliver services for residents, whom many are unemployed, is misguided. Our people are jobless, landless and homeless. Majority of them cannot afford municipal services.
Municipalities must buy locally produced goods - Goods produced in their own areas, where they reside. Also, municipalities must insource cleaners, security guards, plumbers, artisans and other general workers.
We always hear about municipalities owing Eskom and water boards but no one tells us about the monies that are owed
to municipalities by national and provincial governments, and state entities. We must recommend that all monies owed to municipalities by national and state agencies be paid directly. Without these recommendations, we reject this report. [Applause.]